Alexander Berkman Russian Revolution and the Communist Party a4

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Alexander Berkman

Russian Revolution and the

Communist Party

1922

T A L


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Contents

Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

e Russian Revolution and the Communist Party . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

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Preface

Clarity of ideas is not aracteristic of the average mind. Many people still continue to think

and to talk of the Russian Revolution and of the Bolsheviki as if the two were identical. In

other words, as if nothing had happened in Russia during the last three years.e great need of the present is to make clear the difference between that grand social

event and the ruling, political party a difference as fundamental as it has been fatal to the

Revolution.

e following pages present a clear and historically true picture of the ideals that inspired

the Revolution, and of the role played by the Bolsheviki. is pamphlet conclusively proves

what the Russian Revolution IS and what the BoIshevik State, alias the Communist Party, is

not.

I consider this broure a very able, and for popular reading sufficiently exhaustive, anal-

ysis of the Russian Revolution and of the causes of its undoing. It may be regarded as an au-

thoritative expression of the Anarist movement of Russia, for it was wrien by Anarists

of different sools, some of them participants and all of them well versed in the events of theRevolution. It is the joint work of four well known Moscow Anarists. eir names cannot

be mentioned at present, in view of the fact that some of them are still in Russia. Nor are

their names important in this connection: rather is it the subject and its treatment. I hereby

accept full responsibility for the contents of the following pages, as I am also responsible for

the rendering of the Russian manuscript into English.

I take this occasion to correct the erroneous statement contained in Rudolf Roers Pref-

ace to the German edition of this pamphlet, regarding its authorship. is broure was

wrien in Moscow, in June, 1921, and secretly forwarded to Roer. Because of a misunder-

standing Comrade Roer ascribed the authorship of the manuscript to one person, hinted at

but unnamed in Roers Preface. e fact of the authorship is as stated above.

e Russian Revolution and the Communist Party

e October Revolution was not the legitimate offspring of traditional Marxism. Russia but

lile resembled a country in whi, according to Marx, the concentration of the means of

production and the socialisation of the tools of labor reaed the point where they can no

longer be contained within their capitalistic shell. e shell bursts

In Russia, the shell burst unexpectedly. It burst at a stage of low tenical and industrial

development, when centralisation of the means of production had made lile progress. Rus-

sia was a country with a badly organised system of transportation, with a weak bourgeoisie

and weak proletariat, but with a numerically strong and socially important peasant popula-tion. In short, it was a country in whi, apparently, there could be no talk of irreconcilable

antagonism between the grown industrial labor forces and a fully ripened capitalist system.

But the combination of circumstances in 1917 involved, particularly for Russia, an excep-

tional state of affairs whi. resulted in the catastrophic breakdown of her whole industrial

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system. It was easy for Russia, Lenin justly wrote at the time, to begin the socialist revo-

lution in the peculiarly unique situation of 1917.

e specially favorable conditions for the beginning of the socialist revolution were:

1. the possibility of blending the slogans of the Social Revolution with the popular demand

for the termination of the imperialistic world war, whi had produced great exhaustion

and dissatisfaction among the masses;

2. the possibility of remaining, at least for a certain period aer quiing the war, outside the

sphere of influence of the capitalistic European groups that continued the world war;

3. the opportunity to begin, even during the short time of this respite, the work of internal

organisation and to prepare the foundation for revolutionary reconstruction;

4. the exceptionally favorable position of Russia, in case of possible new aggression on the

part of West European imperialism, due to her vast territory and insufficient means of

communication;

5. the advantages of su a condition in the event of civil war; and

6. the possibility of almost immediately satisfying the fundamental demands of the revolu-

tionary peasantry, notwithstanding the fact that the essentially democratic viewpoint of

the agricultural population was entirely different from the socialist program of the party

of the proletariat whi seized the reins of government.

Moreover, revolutionary Russia already had the benefit of a great experience the expe-

rience of 1905, when the Tsarist autocracy succeeded in crushing the revolution for the very

reason that the laer strove to be exclusively political and therefore could neither arouse the

peasants nor inspire even a considerable part of the proletariat .

e world war, by exposing the complete bankruptcy of constitutional government,

served to prepare and quien the greatest movement of the people a movement whi, by

virtue of its very essence, could develop only into a social revolution.

Anticipating the measures of the revolutionary government, oen even in defiance of the

laer, the revolutionary masses by their own initiative began, long before the October days, to

put in practice their Social ideals. ey took possession of the land, the factories, mines, mills,

and the tools of production. ey got rid of the more hated and dangerous representatives

of government and authority. In their grand revolutionary outburst they destroyed every

form of political and economic oppression. In the deeps of Russia the Social Revolution was

raging, when the October ange took place in the capitals of Petrograd and Moscow.e Communist Party, whi was aiming at the dictatorship, from the very beginning

correctly judged the situation. rowing overboard the democratic planks of its platform, it

energetically proclaimed the slogans of the Social Revolution, in order to gain control of the

movement of the masses. In the course of the development of the Revolution, the Bolsheviki

gave concrete form to certain fundamental principles and methods of Anarist Communism,

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as for instance: the negation of parliamentarism, expropriation of the bourgeoisie, tactics of

direct action, seizure of the means of production, establishment of the system of Workers

and Peasants Councils (Soviets), and so forth.

Furthermore, the Communist Party exploited all the popular demands of the hour: ter-

mination of the war, all power to the revolutionary proletariat, the land for the peasants,

etc. is, as we shall see later, base demagoguery proved of tremendous psyologic effect

in hastening and intensifying the revolutionary process.

But if it was easy, as Lenin said, to begin the Revolution, its further development and

strengthening were to take place amid difficult surroundings.

e external position of Russia, as aracterised by Lenin about the middle of 1918, con-

tinued to be unusually complicated and dangerous, and tempting for the neighboring im-

perialist States by its temporary weakness e Socialist Soviet Republic was in an extraor-

dinarily unstable, very critical international position.

And, indeed, the whole subsequent external history of Russia is full of difficulties in

consequence of the necessity of fighting ceaselessly, oen on several fronts at once, against

the agents of world imperialism, and even against common adventurers. Only aer the final

defeat of the Wrangel forces was at last put an end to direct armed interference in the affairs

of Russia.

No less difficult and complex, even aotic, was the internal situation of the country.

Complete breakdown of the whole industrial fabric; failure of the national economy;

disorganisation of the transportation system, hunger, unemployment; relative la of organ-

isation among the workers; unusually complex and contradictory conditions of peasant life;

the psyology of the pey proprietor, inimical to the new Soviet regime; sabotage of Soviet

work by the tenical intelligentsia; the great la in the Party of trained workers familiar

with local conditions, and the practical inefficiency of the Party heads; finally, according to

the frank admission of the anowledged leader of the Bolsheviki, the greatest hatred, by

the masses, and distrust of everything governmental that was the situation in whi the

first and most difficult steps of the Revolution had to be made.

It must also be mentioned that there were still other specific problems with whi the

revolutionary government. had to deal. Namely, the deep-seated contradictions and even

antagonisms between the interests and aspirations of the various social groups of the country.

e most important of these were:

1. the most advanced, and in industrial centers the most influential, group of factory proletar-

ians. Notwithstanding their relative cultural and tenical bawardness, these elements

favored the application of true communist methods;

2. the numerically powerful peasant population, whose economic aitude was decisive, par-ticularly at a time of industrial prostration and bloade. is class looked with distrust

and even hatred upon all aempts of the Communist government to play the guardian

and control their economic activities;

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3. the very large and psyologically influential group (in the sense of forming public opin-

ion, even if of a paniy aracter) of the common citizenry: the residue of the upper

bourgeoisie, tenical specialists, small dealers, pey bosses, commercial agents of every

kind a numerous group, in whi were also to be found functionaries of the old regime

who adapted themselves and were serving the Soviet government, now and then sabotag-

ing; elements tempted by the opportunities of the new order of things and seeking to make

a career; and, finally, persons torn out of their habitual modes of life and literally starving.

is class was approximately estimated at 70% of the employees of Soviet institutions.

Naturally, ea of these groups looked upon the Revolution with their own eyes, judged

its further possibilities from their own point of view, and in their own peculiar manner reacted

on the measures of the revolutionary government.

All these antagonisms rending the country and, frequently clashing in bloody strife, in-

evitably tended to nourish counter-revolution not mere conspiracy or rebellion, but the

terrific convulsion of a country experiencing two world cataclysms at once: war and social

revolution.

us the political party that assumed the role of dictator was faced by problems of un-

precedented difficulty. e Communist Party did not shrink from their solution, and in that

is its immortal historic merit.

Notwithstanding the many deep antagonisms, in spite of the apparent absence of the

conditions necessary for a social revolution, it was too late to discuss about driving ba

the uninvited guest, and await a new, more favorable opportunity. Only blind, dogmatic or

positively reactionary elements could imagine that the Revolution could have been made

differently. e Revolution was not and could not be a meanical product of the abstract

human will. It was an organic process burst with elemental force from the very needs of the

people, from the complex combination of circumstances that determined their existence.

To return to tile old political and economical regime, that of industrial feudalism, was

out of the question. It was impossible, and first of all because it were the denial of the

greatest conquest of the Revolution: the right of every worker to a decent human life. It was

also impossible because of the fundamental principles of the new national economy: the old

regime was inherently inimical to the developement of free social relationship it had no

room for labor initiative.

It was apparent that the only right and wholesome solution whi could save the

Revolution from its external enemies, free it from the inner strife whi rent the country,

broaden and deepen the Revolution itself lay in the direct, creative initiative of the toiling

masses. Only they who had for centuries borne the heaviest burdens could through conscious

systematic effort find the road to a new, regenerated society. And that was to be the fiing

culmination of their unexampled revolutionary zeal.

Lenin himself, replying in one of his works to the question, How is the discipline of the

revolutionary party of the proletariat to be maintained, how to be strengthened? clearly and

definitely replied: By knowing how to meet, to combine, to some extent even to merge, if

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you will, with the broad masses of the toilers, mainly with the proletariat, but also with the

non-proletarian laboring masses. (Italics are Lenins.)

However, this thought was and still remains, on the whole, in irreconcilable conflict, with

the spirit of Marxism in its official Bolshevik interpretation, and particularly with Lenins

authoritative view of it.

For years trained in their peculiar underground social philosophy, in whi fervent

faith in the Social Revolution was in some odd manner blended with their no less fanatical

faith in State centralisation, the Bolsheviki devised an entirely new science of tactics. It is

to the effect that the preparation and consummation of the Social Revolution necessitates

the organisation of a special conspirative staff, consisting exclusively of the theoreticians of

the movement, vested with dictatorial powers for the purpose of clarifying and perfecting

beforehand, by their own conspirative means, the class-consciousness of the proletariat.

us the fundamental aracteristic of Bolshevik psyology was distrust of the masses,

of the proletariat. Le to themselves, the masses according to Bolshevik conviction could

rise only to the consciousness of the pey reformer.

e road that leads to the direct creativeness of the masses was thus forsaken.

According to Bolshevik conception, the masses are dark, mentally crippled by ages of

slavery. ey are multi-colored: besides the revolutionary advance-guard they comprise

great numbers of the indifferent and many self-seekers. e masses, according to the old but

still correct maxim of Rousseau, must be made free by force. To educate them to liberty one

must not hesitate to use compulsion and violence.

Proletarian compulsion in all its forms, writes Bukharin, one of the foremost Commu-

nist theoreticians, beginning with summary execution and ending with compulsory labor

is, however paradoxical it may sound, a method of reworking the human material of the

capitalistic epo into Communist humanity.

is cynical doctrinairism, this fanatical quasi-philosophy flavored with Communist ped-

agogic sauce and aided by the pressure of canonized officials (expression of the prominent

Communist and labor leader Shliapnikov) represent the actual methods of the Party dicta-

torship, whi retains the trade mark of the dictatorship of the proletariat merely for gala

affairs at home and for advertisement abroad. Already in the first days of the Revolution,

early in 1918, when Lenin first announced to the world his socio-economic program in its

minutest details, the roles of the people and of the Party in the revolutionary reconstruction

were strictly separated and definitely assigned. On the one hand, an absolutely submissive

socialist herd, a dumb people; on the other, the omniscient, all-controlling Political Party.

What is inscrutable to all, is an open book to It. In the land there may be only one indis-

putable source of truth the State. But the Communist State is, in essence and practice, the

dictatorship of the Party only, or more correctly the dictatorship of its Central Commit-tee. Ea and every citizen must be, first and foremost, the servant of the State, its obedient

functionary, unquestioningly executing the will of his master if not as a maer of con-

science, then out of fear. All free initiative, of the individual as well as of the collectivity, is

eliminated from the vision of the State. e peoples Soviets are transformed into sections

of the Ruling Party; the Soviet institutions become soulless offices, mere transmiers of the

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will of the center to the periphery. All expressions of State activity must be stamped with

the approving seal of Communism as interpreted by the faction in power. Everything else is

considered superfluous, useless and dangerous.

is system of barra absolutism, supported by bullet and bayonet, has subjugated every

phase of life, stopping neither before the destruction of the best cultural values, nor before

the most stupendous squandering of human life and energy.

* * *

By its declaration Ltat cest moi, the Bolshevik dictatorship has assumed entire responsibil-

ity for the Revolution in all its historic and ethical implications

Having paralised the constructive efforts of the people, the Communist Party could

henceforth count only on its own initiative. By what means, then, did the Bolshevik dic-

tatorship expect to use to best advantage the resources of the Social Revolution? What roaddid it oose, not merely to subject the masses meanically to its authority, but also to edu-

cate them, to inspire them with advanced socialist ideas, and to stimulate them exhausted

as they were by long war, economic ruin and police rule with new faith in socialist recon-

struction? What has it substituted in place of the revolutionary enthusiasm whi burned so

intensely before?

Two things, whi comprised the beginning and the end of the constructive activities of

the Bolshevik dictatorship:

1. the theory of the Communist State, and

2. terrorism.

In his speees about the Communist program, in discussions at conferences and con-

gresses, and in his celebrated pamphlet on Infantile Siness of Leism in Communism,

Lenin gradually shaped that peculiar doctrine of the Communist State whi was fated to

play the dominant role in the aitude of the Party and to determine all the subsequent steps

of the Bolsheviki in the sphere of practical politics. It is the doctrine of a zigzag political road:

of respites and tributes, agreements and compromises, profitable retreats, advantageous

withdrawals and surrenders a truly classical theory of compromise.

Scorning the uling and giggling of the laeys of the bourgeoisie, Lenin calls upon

the laboring masses to steer down the wind, to retreat, to wait and wat, to go slowly, and

so on. Not the fiery spirit of Communism, but sober commercialism whi can successfully

bargain for a few crumbs of socialism from the still unconquered bourgeoisie that is the

need of the hour. To encourage and develop the virtues of the trader, the spirit of parsimony

and profitable dealing: that is the first commandment to the regenerated people.

In the pamphlet referred to, Lenin scouts all stereotyped morality and compares the tac-

tics of his Party with those of a military commander, ignoring the gulf whi divides them

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and their aims. All means are good that lead to victory. ere are compromises and compro-

mises. e whole history of Bolshevism before and aer the October Revolution, Lenin

sermonises the naive German le Communists who are stifling in their own revolution-

ary fervor, is replete with instances of agreements and compromises with other parties, the

bourgeoisie included. To prove his assertion, Lenin enumerates in great detail various cases

of bargaining with bourgeoisie parties, beginning with 1905 and up to the adoption by the

Bolsheviki, at the time of the October Revolution, of the agrarian platform of the socialists-

revolutionists, in toto, without ange.

Compromise and bargaining, for whi the Bolsheviki so unmercifully and justly de-

nounced and stigmatised all the other factions of State Socialism, now become the Bethle-

hem Star pointing the way to revolutionary reconstruction. Naturally, su methods could

not fail to lead, with fatal inevitability, into the swamp of conformation, hypocrisy and un-

principledness.

e Brest Litovsk peace; the agrarian policy with its spasmodic anges from the poorest

class of peasantry to the peasant exploiter; the perplexed, paniy aitude to the labor unions;

the fitful Policy in regard to tenical experts, with its theoretical and practical swaying from

collegiate management of industries to one-man power; nervous appeals to West European

capitalism, over the heads of the home and foreign proletariat; filially, the latest inconsis-

tent and zigzaggy, but incontrovertible and assured restoration of the abolished bourgeoisie

su is the new system of Bolshevism. A system of unprecedented shamelessness prac-

ticed on a monster scale, a policy of outrageous double-dealing in whi the le hand of the

Communist Party is beginning consciously to ignore, and even to deny, on principle, what

its right hand is doing; when, for instance, it is proclaimed, on the one hand, that the most

important problem of the moment is the struggle against the small bourgeoisie (and, inciden-

tally, in stereotyped Bolshevik phraseology, against anarist elements), while on the other

hand are issued new decrees creating the teno-economic and psyological conditions nec-

essary for the restoration and strengthening of that same bourgeoisie that is the Bolshevik

policy whi will forever stand as a monument of the thoroughly false, thoroughly contra-

dictory, concerned only in self-preservation, opportunistic policy of the Communist Party

dictatorship.

However loud that dictatorship may shout about the great success of its new political

methods, it remains the most tragic fact that the worst and most incurable wounds of the

Revolution were received at the hands of the Communist dictatorship itself.

An inevitable consequence of Communist Party rule was also the other method of Bol-

shevik management: terrorism.

Long ago Engels said that the proletariat does not need the State to protect liberty, but

needs it for the purpose of crushing its opponents; and that when it will be possible to speakof liberty, there will be no government. e Bolsheviki adopted this maxim not only as their

socio-political axiom during the transition period, but gave it universal application.

Terrorism always was and still remains the ultima ratio of government alarmed for its

existence. Terrorism is tempting with its tremendous possibilities. It offers a meanical

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solution, as it were, in hopeless situations. Psyologically it is explained its a maer of

self-defense, as the necessity of throwing off responsibility the beer to strike the enemy.

But tile principles of terrorism unavoidably rebound to the fatal injury of liberty and

revolution. Absolute power corrupts and defeats its partisans no less than its opponents. A

people that knows not liberty becomes accustomed to dictatorship: fighting despotism and

counter-revolution, terrorism itself becomes their efficient sool.

Once on the road of terrorism, the State necessarily becomes estranged from the people. It

must reduce to the possible minimum the circle of persons vested with extraordinary powers,

in the name of the safety of the State. And then is born what may be called the panic of

authority. e dictator, the despot is always cowardly. He suspects treason everywhere.

And the more terrified he becomes, the wilder rages his frightened imagination, incapable of

distinguishing real danger from fancied. He sows broadcast discontent, antagonism, hatred.

Having osen this course, the State is doomed to follow it to the very end.

e Russian people remained silent, and in their name in the guise of mortal combat

with counter-revolution the government initiated the most merciless warfare against all

political opponents of the Communist Party. Every vestige of liberty was torn out by the

roots. Freedom of thought, of the press, of public assembly, self-determination of the worker

and of his unions, the freedom of labor all were declared old rubbish, doctrinaire nonsense,

bourgeois prejudices, or intrigues of reviving counter-revolution. Science, art, education

fell under suspicion. Science is to investigate and tea only the truths of the Communist

State: the sools and universities are speedily transformed into Party sools.

Election campaigns, as for instance the recent re-elections to the Moscow Soviet (1921),

involve the arrest and imprisonment of opposition candidates who are not favored by the

authorities. With entire impunity the government exposes non-Communist candidates to

public insult and derision on the pages of the official newspapers pasted on bulletin boards.

By numberless stratagems the electors are cajoled and menaced, in turn, and the result of the

so-called elections is the complete perversion of the peoples will.

State terrorism is exercised through government organs known as Extraordinary Com-

missions. Vested with unlimited powers, independent of any control and practically irre-

sponsible, possessing their own simplified forms of investigation and procedure, with a

numerous staff of ignorant, corrupt and brutal agents, these Commissions have within a

short time become not only the terror of actual or fancied counter-revolution, but also and

mu more so the most virulent ulcer on the revolutionary body of the country.

e all-pervading secret police methods, the inseparable from them system of provo-

cation, the division of the population into well-meaning and ill-disposed, have gradually

transformed the Struggle for the new world into an unbridled debau of espionage, pillage

and violence.No reactionary rgime ever dominated the life and liberty of its citizens with su arbi-

trariness and despotism as the alleged dictatorship of the proletariat. As in the old days of

Tsarism, the okhranka (secret police section) rules the land. e Soviet prisons are filled

with socialists and revolutionists of every shade of political opinion. Physical violence to-

ward political prisoners and hunger strikes in prison are again the order of the day. Summary

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executions, not only of individuals but en masse, are common occurrences. e Socialist State

has not scrupled to resort to a measure whi even the most brutal bourgeois governments

did not dare to use: the system of hostages. Relationship or even casual friendship is sufficient

ground for merciless persecution and, quite frequently, for capital punishment.

Gross and barbaric contempt for the most elementary human rights has become an axiom

of the Communist Government.

With logical inevitability the Extraordinary Commissions have gradually grown into a

monstrous autocratic meanism, independent and unaccountable, with power over life and

death. Appeal is impossible, non-existent. Even the supreme organs of State authority are

powerless before the Extraordinary Commissions, as proven by bier experience.

* * *

e Bolshevik Party is not in the habit of scorning any perversion of truth to stigmatise every

anti-Bolshevik criticism or protest as conspiracy of one of the right socialist parties: of

the social-democratic Mensheviki and Socialist-Revolutionists. us the Communists seek to

justify brutal repressions against the right elements. In regard to the Anarists, however,

Bolshevist terrorism cannot be justified by su means.

It is apropos here to sket, though very briefly, the mutual relations between Anarism

and Bolshevism during the Revolution.

When, in the first days of the Revolution (1917), the laboring masses began the destruc-

tion of the system of private ownership and of government, the Anarists worked shoulder

to shoulder with them. e October Revolution instinctively followed the path marked out

by the great popular outburst, naturally reflecting Anarist tendencies. e Revolution de-

stroyed the old State meanism and proclaimed in political life the principle of the federation

of soviets. It employed the method of direct expropriation to abolish private capitalistic own-

ership: the peasants and workers expropriated the landlords, ased the financiers from the

banks, seized the factories, mines, mills and shops. In the field of economic reconstruction

the Revolution established the principle of the federation of shop and factory commiees

for the management of production. House commiees looked aer the proper assignment of

living quarters.

In this early phase of the October Revolution, the Anarists aided the people with all

the power at their command, and worked hand in hand with the Bolsheviki in supporting

and strengthening the new principles. Among the legion of enthusiastic fighters of the Rev-

olution, who to the end remained true to the ideals and methods of Anarism, we may

particularly mention here Justin Zhook, the founder of the famous Sluesselburg powdermill, who lost his life while performing revolutionary military duty; also Zhelesnyakov, who

with rare strength and courage dispersed the Constituent Assembly, and who aerwards fell

fighting against counter-revolutionary invasion.

But as soon as the Bolsheviki succeeded in gaining control of the movement of the masses,

the work of social reconstruction suffered a sharp ange in its aracter and forms.

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From now on the Bolsheviki, under cover of the dictatorship of the proletariat, use ev-

ery effort to build up a centralised bureaucratic State. All who interpreted the Social Rev-

olution as, primarily, the self-determination of the masses, the introduction of free, non-

governmental Communism, they are henceforth doomed to persecution. is persecution

was directed, first of all, against the critics from the le, the Anarists. In April, 1918, the

ruling Communist Party decided to abolish all Anarist organisations. Without warning,

on the night of April 12th, the Anarist club of Moscow was surrounded by artillery and

maine guns, and those present on the premises ordered to surrender. Fire was opened on

those resisting. e Anarist quarters were raided, and the following day the entire Anar-

ist press was suppressed.

Since then the persecution of Anarists and of their organisations has assumed a system-

atic aracter. On the one hand our comrades were perishing on the military fronts, fighting

counter-revolution; on the other, they were stru down by the Bolshevik State by means of

the Extraordinary Commissions (Teka).

e further the ruling Party departed from the path marked out by the October Revolu-

tion, the more determinedly it oppressed the other revolutionary elements and particularly

the Anarists. In November, 1918, the All-Russian Conference of the Anaro-Syndicalists,

held in Moscow, was arrested in corpore. e other Anarist organisations were broken up

and terrorised. Because of the total impossibility of legal activity, some Anarists decided

to go underground. Several of them, in cooperation with some le Socialist-Revolutionists,

resorted to terrorism. On September 25, 1919, they exploded a bomb in the building (Leon-

tevsky Pereulok) in whi the Moscow Commiee of the Party was in session. e Anarist

organisations of Moscow, not considering terrorism a solution of the difficulties, publicly

expressed disapproval of the tactics of the underground group. e government, however,

replied with repressions against all Anarists. Many members of the underground group

were executed, a number of Moscow Anarists were arrested, and in the provinces every

expression of the Anarist movement was suppressed. e finding, during a sear, of su

Anarist literature as the works of Kropotkin or Bakunin, led to arrest.

Only in the Ukraina, where the power of the Bolsheviki was comparatively weak, owing

to the wide-spread rebel-peasant movement known as the Makhnovstsina (from its leader,

the Anarist Makhno), the Anarist movement continued to some extent active. e ad-

vance of Wrangel into the heart of the Ukraina and the inability of the Red Army to halt

his progress, caused Makhno temporarily to suspend his struggle with the Bolsheviki for free

Soviets and the self-determination of the laboring masses. He offered his help to the Bolshe-

viki to fight the common enemy Wrangel. e offer was accepted, and a contract officially

concluded between the Soviet Government and the army of Makhno.

Wrangel was defeated and his army dispersed, with Makhno playing no inconsiderablepart in this great military triumph. But with the liquidation of Wrangel, Makhno became

unnecessary and dangerous to the Bolsheviki. It was decided to get rid of him, to put an

end to Maklmovstsina, and, incidentally, dispose of the Anarists at large. e Bolshe-

vik government betrayed Makhno: the Red forces treaerously surrounded Makhnos army

demanding surrender. At the same time all the delegates who had arrived in Kharkov to

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participate in the Anarist Congress, for whi official permission had been given, were

arrested, as well as the Anarists resident in Kharkov and the comrades still en route to the

Congress.

Yet, in spite of all the provocative and terroristic tactics of the Bolsheviki against them,

the Anarists of Russia refrained, during the whole period of civil war, from protesting to

the workers of Europe and America aye, even to those of Russia itself fearing that su

action might be prejudicial to the interests of the Russian Revolution and that it may aid the

common enemy, world imperialism.

But with the termination of civil war the position of the Anarists grew even worse.

e new policy of the Bolsheviki of open compromise with the bourgeois world became

clearer, more definite, and ever sharper their break with the revolutionary aspirations of the

working masses. e struggle against Anarism, till then oen masked by the excuse of

fighting banditism in the guise of Anarism, now became open and frank warfare against

Anarist ideals and ideas, as su.

e Kronstadt events offered the Bolsheviki the desired pretext for completely liqui-

dating the Anarists. Wholesale arrests were instituted throughout Russia. Irrespective

of factional adherence, practically all known Russian Anarists were taken into the police

net. To this day all of them remain in prison, without any arges having been preferred

against them. In the night of April 25th-26th, 1921, all the political prisoners in the Bootirka

prison (Moscow), to the number of over 400, consisting of representatives of the right and

le wings of socialist parties and members of Anarist organisations, were forcibly taken

from the prison and transferred. On that occasion many of the prisoners suffered brutal vi-

olence: women were dragged down the steps by their hair, and a number of the politicals

sustained serious injuries. e prisoners were divided into several groups and sent to various

prisons in the provinces. Of their further fate we have so far been unable to receive definite

information.

us did the Bolsheviki reply to the revolutionary enthusiasm and deep faith whi in-

spired the masses in the beginning of their great struggle for liberty and justice a reply

that expressed itself in the policy of compromise abroad and terrorism at home.

is policy proved fatal: it corrupted and disintegrated the Revolution, poisoned it, stayed

its soul, destroyed its moral, spiritual significance. By its despotism; by stubborn, pey pa-

ternalism; by the perfidy whi replaced its former revolutionary idealism; by its stifling

formalism and criminal indifference to the interests and aspirations of the masses; by its

cowardly suspicion and distrust of the people at large, the dictatorship of the proletariat

hopelessly cut itself off from the laboring masses.

rust ba from direct participation in the constructive work of the Revolution, harassed

at every step, the victim of constant supervision and control by the Party, the proletariatis becoming accustomed to consider the Revolution and its further fortunes as the private,

is pamphlet was wrien in June, 1921, as mentioned in my Preface. Since then some of the Anaristsimprisoned in Moscow have been deported from Russia, though natives of that country; others have been exiledto distant parts, while a large number are still in the prisons. A. B.

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personal affair of the Bolsheviki. In vain does the Communist Party seek by ever new decrees

to preserve its hold upon the countrys life. e people have seen through the rear meaning of

the Party dictatorship. ey know its narrow, selfish dogmatism, its cowardly opportunism;

they are aware of its internal decay, its intrigues behind the scenes.

In the land where, aer three years of tremendous effort, of terrible and heroic sacri-

fice, there should have come to bloom the wonder-flower of Communism, alas, even its

withered buds are killed in distrust, apathy, and enmity.

us came about the era of revolutionary stagnation, of sterility, whi cannot be cured

by any political party methods, and whi demonstrates the complete social atrophy.

e swamp of compromise into whi Bolshevik dictatorship had sunk proved fatal to

the Revolution: it became poisoned by its noxious miasma. In vain do the Bolsheviki point

to the imperialistic world war as the cause of Russias economic breakdown; in vain do they

ascribe it to the bloade and the aas of armed counter-revolution. Not in them is the

real source of the collapse and dbacle.

No bloade, no wars with foreign reaction could dismay or conquer the revolutionary

people whose unexampled heroism, self-sacrifice and perseverance defeated all its external

enemies. On the contrary, it is probable that civil war really helped the Bolsheviki. It served

to keep alive popular enthusiasm and nurtured the hope that, with the end of war, the ruling

Communist Party will make effective the new revolutionary principles and secure the people

in the enjoyment of the fruits of the Revolution. e masses looked forward to the yearned

for opportunity for social and economic liberty. Paradoxical as it may sound, the Communist

dictatorship had no beer ally, in the sense of strengthening and prolonging its life, than the

reactionary forces whi fought against it.

It was only the termination of the wars whi permied a full view of the economic and

psyologic demoralisation to whi the blindly despotic policy of the dictatorship brought

the revolutionary country. en it became evident that the most formidable danger to the

Revolution was not outside, but within the country: a danger resulting from the very nature

of the social and economic arrangements whi aracterise the present transitory stage.

We fully realise the gross error of the theoreticians of bourgeois political economy who

wilfully ignore the study of [historical] evolution from the historico-social viewpoint, and

stupidly confound the system of State capitalism with that of the socialist dictatorship. e

Bolsheviki are quite right when the insist that the two types of socio-economic development

are diametrically opposed in their essential aracter. However, it were wrong and useless

to pretend that su a form of industrial life as expressed in the present system of proletarian

dictatorship is anything essentially different from State capitalism.

As a maer of fact, the proletarian dictatorship, as it actually exists, is in no sense different

from State capitalism.e distinctive aracteristics of the laer inherent social antagonisms are abolished

only formally in the Soviet Republic. In reality those antagonisms exist and arc very deep-

seated e exploitation of labor, the enslavement of the worker and peasant, the cancellation

of the citizen as a human being, as a personality, and his transformation into a microscopic

part of the universal economic meanism owned by the government; the creation of priv-

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ileged groups favored by the State; the system of compulsory labor service and its punitive

organs su are the aracteristic features of State capitalism.

All these features are also to be found in the present Russian system. It were unpardon-

able naivity, or still more unpardonable hypocrisy, to pretend as do Bolshevik theoreticians,

especially Bukharin that universal compulsory labor service in the system of the proletarian

dictatorship is, in contradistinction to State capitalism, the self-organisation of the masses

for purposes of labor, or that the existing mobilisation of industry is the strengthening of

socialism, and that State Coercion in the system of proletarian dictatorship is a means of

building the Communist society.

A year ago Trotzky, at the Tenth Congress of the Communist Party of Russia, thundered

against the bourgeois notion that compulsory labor is not productive. He sought to con-

vince his audience that the main problem is to draw the worker into the process of labor,

not by external methods of coercion, but by means internal, psyological. But when he

approaed the concrete application of this principle, be advocated a very complex system,

involving methods of an ethical nature, as well as premiums and punishment, in order to in-

crease the productivity of labor in consonance with those principles of compulsion according

to whi we are constructing our whole economic life.

e experiment was made, and it gave surprising results. Whether the old bourgeois

notion proved correct, or the newest socialism was powerless internally, psyologically

compulsory to draw the worker into the process of production, by means of premiums,

punishment, etc., at any rate, the worker refused to be snared by the tempting formula of

pysologic coercion. Evidently the ideology as well as the practice of Bolshevism con-

vinced the toilers that the socio-economic ideals of the Bolsheviki are incidentally also a step

forward in the more intensive exploitation of labor. For Bolshevism, far from saving the

country from ruin and in no way improving the conditions of existence for the masses, is

aempting to turn the serf of yesterday into a complete slave. How lile the Communist

State is concerned about the workers well-being is seen from the statement of a prominent

Communist delegate to the Tenth Congress of the Party: Up till now Soviet policy has been

aracterised by the complete absence of any plan to improve the living conditions of labor.

And further: All that was done in that regard happened accidentally, or was done by fits

and starts, by local authorities under pressure of the masses themselves.

Is this, then, the system of proletarian dictatorship or State capitalism?

Chained to their work, deprived of the right to leave the job on pain of prison or summary

execution for labor desertion; bossed and spied upon by Party overseers; divided into qual-

ified sheep (artisans) and unqualified goats (laborers) receiving unequal food rations; hungry

and insufficiently clad, deprived of the right to protest or strike su are the modern prole-

tarians of the Communist dictatorship. Is this self organisation of the toiling masses nota step baward, a return to feudal serfdom or negro slavery? Is the hand of the Communist

State executioner less ruthless than the whip of the plantation boss? Only solasticism or

blind fanaticism can see in this, the most grievous form of slavery, the emancipation of labor

or even the least approa to it.

It is the height of tragedy that State Socialism, enmeshed in logical antitheses, could give

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to the world nothing beer than the intensification of the evils of the very system whose

antagonisms produced socialism.

e Party dictatorship applies the same policy, in every detail, also to the peasantry.

Here, too, the State is the universal master. e same policy of compulsory labor service, of

oppression, spying, and systematic expropriation of the fruits of the peasants toil: the for-

mer method of requisition whi frequently stripped the peasants even of the necessaries of

life; or the newly initiated, but no less predatory, food tax; tile senseless, enormous waste of

foodstuffs due to the cumbrous system of centralisation and the Bolshevik food policy; the

dooming of whole peasant districts to slow starvation, disease and death; punitive expedi-

tions, massacring peasant families by the wholesale and razing entire villages to the ground

for the slightest resistance to the plundering policy of the Communist dictatorship su

are the methods of Bolshevik rule.

us, neither economic nor political exploitation of the industrial and agrarian proletariat

has ceased. Only its forms have anged: formerly exploitation was purely capitalistic; now,

labeled workers and peasants government and ristened communist economy, it is

State capitalistic.

But this modern system of State capitalism is pernicious not only because it degrades the

living human into a soulless maine. It contains another, no less destructive, element. By

its very nature this system is extremely aggressive. Far from abolishing militarism, in the

narrow sense of the term, it applies the principle of militarisation with all its aributes

of meanical discipline, irresponsible authority and repression to every phase of human

effort.

Socialist militarism is not only admied, but defended and justified by the theoreticians

of the Party. us Bukharin in his work on the Economics of the Transition Period writes:

e workers government, when waging war, seeks to broaden and strengthen the economic

foundations on whi it is built that is, socialist forms of production. Incidentally, it is clear

from this that, in principle, even an aggressive revolutionary socialist war is permissible.

And, indeed, we are already familiar with some imperialistic pretensions of the workers

dictatorship.

us the bourgeois prejudices kied out through the window re-enter through the

door.

It is evident that the militarism of the labor dictatorship, like any other militarism,

necessitates the formation of a gigantic army of non-producers. Moreover, su an army

and all its various organs must be supplied with tenical resources and means of existence,

whi puts additional burdens on the producers, that is, the workers and the peasants.

Another and the most momentous internal danger is the dictatorship itself. e dictator-

ship whi, despotic and ruthless, has alienated itself from the laboring masses, has strangledinitiative and liberty, suppressed the creative spirit of the very elements whi bore the brunt

of the Revolution, and is slowly but effectively instilling its poison in the hearts and minds

of Russia.

us does the dictatorship itself sow counter-revolution. Not conspiracies from without,

not the campaigns of the Denikins and Wrangels are the Damocles sword of Russia. e real

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and greatest danger is that country-wide disillusionment, resentment and hatred of Bolshevik

despotism, that counter-revolutionary aitude of the people at large, whi is the legitimate

offspring of the Communist Party dictatorship itself.

Even in the ranks of the proletariat is ripening, with cumulative force, the protest against

the reactionary big sti policy of Bolshevism.

* * *

e organised labor movement of Russia developed immediately aer the February Revolu-

tion. e formation of shop and factory commiees was the first step toward actual control

by labor of the activities of the capitalist owners. Su control, however, could not be general

without coordinating the work of all other similar commiees, and thus came to life Soviets,

or General Councils, of shop and factory commiees, and their All-Russian Congress.

In this manner the shop and factory commiees (zahvkomy) were the pioneers in laborcontrol of industry, with the prospect of themselves, in the near future, managing the in-

dustries entire. e labor unions, on the other hand, were engaged in improving the living

conditions and cultural environment of their membership.

But aer the October Revolution the situation anged. e centralisation methods of the

Bolshevik dictatorship penetrated also into the unions. e autonomy of the shop commiees

was now declared superfluous. e labor unions were reorganised on industrial principles,

with the shop commiee emasculated into a mere embryo of the union, and entirely sub-

jected to the authority of the central organs. us all independence of action, all initiative

was torn from the hands of the workers themselves and transferred to the union bureaucracy.

e result of this policy was the complete indifference of the workers to their unions and to

the fate of the industries.en the Communist Party began to fill the labor unions with its own party members.

ey occupied the union offices. at was easily done because all the other political parties

were outlawed and there existed no public press except the official Bolshevik publications.

No wonder that within a short time the Communists proved an overwhelming majority in all

the provincial and central executive commiees, and had in their hands the exclusive man-

agement of the labor unions. ey usurped the dominant role in every labor body, including

even su organisations where the membership (as in the Union of Soviet Employees) is man-

ifestly and most bierly opposed to the BoIsheviki. Whenever an occasional union proved

refractory, as the printers, for instance, and refused to yield to internal psyologic persua-

sion, the Communists solved the difficulty by the simple expedient of suspending the entire

administration of the union.Having gained control of the political mainery of the labor organisations, the Com-

munist Party formed in every shop and factory small groups of its own members, so-called

Communist cells, whi became the practical masters of the situation. e Communist

cell is vested with su powers that no action of the shop or factory commiee (even if the

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laer consist of Communists) is valid unless sanctioned by the cell. e highest organ of

the labor movement, the All-Russian Central Soviet of Labor Unions, is itself under the direct

control of the Central Commiee of the Communist Party.

Lenin and other Bolshevik leaders take the position that the labor union must be, first

and foremost, a sool of Communism. In practice the role of the labor union in Russia is

reduced to that of an automatic agency for the execution of the orders of the ruling Party.

However, this state of affairs is becoming unbearable even to that labor element whi

is still faithful to the commandments of State Communism. In the ranks of the Communist

Party itself there has developed an opposition movement against the military governmental-

isation of the labor unions. is new movement, known as the Labor Opposition, though still

loyal to its Communist parent, yet realises the full horror of the hopeless position, the blind

alley into whi the criminally stupid policies of the Bolsheviki have driven the Russian

proletariat and the Revolution.

e Labor Opposition is aracterised by the good orthodox Communist Kolontay as the

advance guard of the proletariat, class conscious and welded by the ties of class interests, an

element whi has not estranged itself from the rank and file of the working masses and has

not become lost among Soviet office holders. is Labor Opposition protests against the

bureaucratisation, against the differentiation between the upper and the lower people,

against the excesses of the Party hegemony, and against the shiing and twisting policy of

the ruling central power. e great creative and constructive power of the proletariat, says

the Labor Opposition, cannot be replaced, in the task of building the Communist society,

by the mere emblem of the dictatorship of the working class, of that dictatorship whi

a prominent Communist aracterised at the last Congress of the Communist Party as the

dictatorship of the Party bureaucracy.

Indeed, the Labor Opposition is justified in asking: Are we, the proletariat, really the

babone of the working class dictatorship, or are we to be considered merely as a will-less

herd, good enough only to carry on our bas some party politicians who are pretending to

reconstruct the economic life of the country without our control, without our constructive

class spirit?

And this Labor Opposition, according to Kolontay, keeps on growing in spite of the

determined resistance on the part of the most influential leaders of the Party, and gains more

and more adherents among the laboring masses throughout Russia.

But the Tenth Congress of the Communist Party of Russia (April, 1921) put its decisive

veto on the Labor Opposition. Henceforth it is officially doomed, discussion of its ideas

and principles forbidden because of their Anaro-syndicalist tendency, as Lenin expressed

himself. e Communist Party declared war on the Labor Opposition. e Party Congress

decided that propagation of the principles of the Labor Opposition is incompatible withmembership in the Communist Party. e demand to turn the management of the industries

over to the proletariat was outlawed.

* * *

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e October Revolution was initiated with the great bale cry of the First International,

e emancipation of the workers must be accomplished by the workers themselves. Yet we

saw that, when the period of constructive destruction had passed, when the foundations of

Tsarism had been razed, and the bourgeois system abolished, the Communist Party thought

itself sufficiently strong to take into its own hands the entire management of the country. It

began the education of the workers in a spirit of strictest authoritarianism, and step by step the

Soviet system became transformed into a bureaucratic, punitive police maine. Terrorism

became its logical, inevitable handmaid.

General indifference and hatred, and complete social paralysis, were the result of the

government course. An atmosphere of slavish submission, at once revolting and disgusting,

pervades the whole country. It stifles alike the oppressed and the oppressors.

What boots it that the sober minded, compromise ready Lenin begins his every spee

with the confession of the many and serious mistakes whi have been made by the Party

in power? No piling up of mistakes by the ingenious opportunist, as Lunaarsky dubs

Lenin, can dismay the ampions of Bolshevism intoxicated with their Partys political do-

minion. e mistakes of their leaders become, in the interpretation of Communist theoreti-

cians and publicists, eminent necessity, and the convulsive aempts to correct them (the

whole agrarian policy) are hailed as acts of the greatest wisdom, humanity and loyalty to

Bolshevik principles.

In vain the impatient cry of Kolontay: e fear of criticism, inherent in our system of

bureaucracy, at times reaes the point of caricature. e Party Elders brand her a heretic

for her pains, her pamphlet e Labor Opposition is prohibited, and Illit himself (Lenin)

seles her with a few sarcastic personal slurs. e syndicalist peril is supposedly removed.

Meanwhile the Opposition is growing, deepening, spreading throughout working Russia.

Indeed, what shall the impartial observer think of the peculiar picture presented by Bol-

shevik Russia? Numerous labor strikes, with scores of workers arrested and oen summarily

executed; peasant uprisings and revolts, continuous revolutionary insurrections in various

parts of the country. Is it not a terribly tragic situation, a heinous absurdity? Is not the rebel-

lion of workers and peasants, however laing in class consciousness in some cases, actual

war against the workers and peasants government the very government whi is flesh

of the flesh and blood of the blood of themselves, whi had been called to guard their inter-

ests, and whose existence should be possible only in so far as it corresponds to the needs and

demands of the laboring masses?

e popular protests do not cease. e opposition movement grows, and in self-defense

the Party must, from time to time, mollify the people, even at the sacrifice of its principles.

But where it is impossible by a few sops to still the craving for bread and liberty, the hungry

mouths are shut with bullet or bayonet, and the official press brands the protestants withthe infamous name of counter-revolutionists, traitors against the workers and peasants

government.

en Russia, Bolshevik Russia, is quiet again with the quietness of death.

e history of recent days is filled with grewsome illustrations of su quiet.

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One of those illustrations is Kronstadt Kronstadt, against whi has been perpetrated

the most awful crime of the Party dictatorship, a crime against the proletariat, against so-

cialism, against the Revolution. A crime multiplied a hundredfold by the deliberate and

perfidious lies spread by the Bolsheviki throughout the world.

Future history will deal adequately with this crying shame. Here we shall give but a brief

sket of the Kronstadt events.

In the month of February, 1921, the workers of four Petrograd factories went on strike.

It had been an exceptionally hard winter for them: they and their families suffered from

cold, hunger and exhaustion. ey demanded an increase of their food rations, some fuel

and clothing. Here and there was also voiced the demand for the Constituent Assembly and

free trade. e strikers aempted a street demonstration, and the authorities ordered out the

military against them, iefly the kursants, the young Communists of the military training

sools.

When the Kronstadt sailors learned what was happening in Petrograd, they expressed

their solidarity with the strikers in their economic and revolutionary demands, but refused

to support any call for the Constituent Assembly and free trade. On Mar 1, the sailors

organised a mass-meeting in Kronstadt whi was aended also by the Chairman of the

All-Russian Central Executive Commiee, Kalinin, (the presiding officer of the Republic of

Russia), by the Commander of the Fortress of Kronstadt, Kuzmin, and by the Chairman of

the Kronstadt Soviet, Vassilyev. e meeting, held with the knowledge and permission of

the Executive Commiee of the Kronstadt Soviet, passed resolutions approved by the sailors,

the garrison and the citizen meeting of 16,000 persons. Kalinin, Kuzmin and Vassilyev spoke

against the resolutions. e main points of the laer were: free spee and free press for the

revolutionary parties; amnesty for imprisoned revolutionists; re-election of the Soviets by

secret ballot and freedom from government interference during the electioneering campaign.

e Bolshevik authorities replied to the resolutions by beginning to remove from the city

the food and ammunition supplies. e sailors prevented the aempt, closed the entrances

to the city, and arrested some of the more obstreperous commissars. Kalinin was permied

to return to Petrograd.

No sooner did the Petrograd authorities learn of the Kronstadt resolutions, than they

initiated a campaign of lies and libel. In spite of the fact that Zinoviev kept in constant tele-

phonic communication with the presiding officer of the Kronstadt Soviet, and was assured

by the laer that all was quiet in Kronstadt and that the sailors were busy only with prepara-

tions for the re-elections, the Petrograd radio station was kept hard at work sending messages

to the world announcing a counter-revolutionary conspiracy and a white-guard uprising in

Kronstadt. At the same time Zinoviev, Kalinin and their aids succeeded in persuading the

Petrograd Soviet to pass a resolution whi was an ultimatum to Kronstadt to surrenderimmediately, on pain of complete annihilation in case of refusal.

A group of well-known and trusted revolutionists, then in Petrograd, realising the

provocative aracter of su a policy, appealed to Zinoviev and to the Council of Defense,

of whi he was the President. ey pointed out the un-revolutionary, reactionary nature

of his policy and its great danger to the Revolution. e demands of Kronstadt were clearly

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set forth: they were against the Constituent Assembly, against free trade, and in favor of

the Soviet form of government. But the people of Kronstadt, as they frankly stated in their

bulletin, could no longer tolerate tile despotism of the Party, and demanded the right to air

their grievances and the re-establishment of free Soviets. All power to the Soviets was

again their wat-word, as it had been that of the people and of the Bolsheviki in 1917. To

resort to armed force against Kronstadt were the height of folly; indeed, a terrible crime. e

only right and revolutionary solution lay in complying with the request of Kronstadt (wired

by the sailors to Zinoviev, but not transmied by him to the Soviet) for the selection of an

impartial Commission to rea an amicable selement.

But this appeal of the Petrograd group of revolutionaries was ignored. Many Commu-

nists clearly understood how maliciously reactionary was the government aitude toward

Kronstadt, but slavishly debased and morally crippled by the jesuitism of the Party, they

dared not speak and mutely participated in the crime .

On Mar 7th Trotzky began the bombardment of Kronstadt, and on the 17th the fortress

and city were taken, aer numerous fierce assaults involving terrific human sacrifice and

treaery. us Kronstadt was liquidated, and the counter-revolutionary plot quened

in blood. e conquest of the city was aractcrised by ruthless savagery to the defeated, al-

though not a single one of the Communists arrested by the Kronstadt sailors had been injured

or killed by them. And even before the storming of the fortress the Bolsheviki summarily ex-

ecuted numerous soldiers of the Red Army, whose revolutionary spirit and solidarity caused

them to refuse to participate in the bloody bath.

e conspiracy and the victory were necessary for the Communist Party to save it

from threatening inner decomposition. Trotzky, who during the discussion of the role of the

Labor Unions (at the joint session of the Communist Party, the Central Executive Council

of the Unions, and the delegates to the 6th Congress of the Soviets, December 30, 1920) was

treated by Lenin as a bad boy who dont know his Marx, once more proved himself the

savior of the country in danger. Harmony was re-established.

A few days aer the glorious conquest of Kronstadt, Lenin said at the 10th Congress

of the Communist Party of Russia: e sailors did not want the counter-revolutionists but

they did not want us, either. And, irony of the executioner! at that very Congress

Lenin advocated free trade, as a respite.

On Mar 17th the Communist government celebrated its bloody victory over the Kro-

nstadt proletariat, and on the 18th it commemorated the martyrs of the Paris Commune. As

if it was not evident to all who had eyes and would see, that the crime commied against

Kronstadt was far more terrible and enormous than the slaughter of the Commune in 1871,

for it was done in the name of the Social Revolution, in the name of the Socialist Repub-

lic. Henceforth to the vile classic figures of iers and Gallifet are added those of Trotzky,Zinoviev, Dihbenko, Tukhaefsky.

* * *

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us is human sacrifice brought to the Molo of Bolshevism, to the gigantic lie that is still

growing and spreading throughout the world and enmeshing it in its network of ruin, false-

hood and treaery. Nor is it only the liberty and lives of individual citizens whi are

sacrificed to this god of clay, nor even merely the well-being of the country: it is Socialist

ideals and the fate of the Revolution whi are being destroyed.

Long ago Bakunin wrote: e whole power of the Russian Tsar is built upon a lie

a lie at home and it lie abroad: a colossal and artful system of lies never witnessed before,

perhaps, in the whole history of man.

But now su a system exists. It is the system of State Communism. e revolutionary

proletariat of the world must open their eyes to the real situation in Russia. ey should learn

to see to what a terrible abyss the ruling Bolshevik Party, by its blind and bloody dictatorship,

has brought Russia and the Russian Revolution. Let the world proletariat give ear to the voices

of true revolutionists, the voices of those whose object is not political party power, but the

success of the Social Revolution, and to whom the Revolution is synonymous with human

dignity, liberty and social regeneration.

May the proletariat of Europe and America, when the world revolution comes, oose a

different road than the one followed by the Bolsheviki. e road of Bolshevism leads to the

formation of a social rgime with new class antagonisms and class distinctions; it leads to

State capitalism, whi only the blind fanatic can consider as a transition stage toward a free

society in whi all class differences are abolished.

State Communism, the contemporary Soviet government, is not and can never become

the threshold of a free, voluntary, non-authoritarian Communist society, because the very

essence and nature of governmental, compulsory Communism excludes su an evolution.

Its consistent economic and political centralisation, its governmentalisation and bureaucrati-

sation of every sphere of human activity and effort, its inevitable militarisation and degra-

dation of the human spirit meanically destroy every germ of new life and extinguish the

stimuli of creative, constructive work.

It is the Communist Party dictatorship itself whi most effectively hinders the further

development and deepening of the Revolution.

e historic struggle of the laboring masses for liberty necessarily and unavoidably pro-

ceeds outside the sphere of governmental influence. e struggle against oppression po-

litical, economic and social against the exploitation of man by man, or of the individual

by the government, is always simultaneously also a struggle against government as su.

e political State, whatever its form, and constructive revolutionary effort are irreconcil-

able. ey are mutually exclusive. Every revolution in the course of its development faces

this alternative: to build freely, independent and despite of the government, or to oose

government with all the limitation and stagnation it involves. e path of the Social Revolu-tion, of the constructive self-reliance of the organised, conscious masses, is in the direction

of non-government, that is, of Anary. Not the State, not government, but systematic and

coordinated social reconstruction by the toilers is necessary for the upbuilding of the new,

free society. Not the State and its police methods, but the solidaric cooperation of all working

elements the proletariat, the peasantry, the revolutionary intelligentsia mutually helping

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ea other in their voluntary associations, will emancipate us from the State superstition and

bridge the passage between the abolished old civilisation and Free Communism. Not by or-

der of some central authority, but organically, from life itself, must grow up the closely-knit

federation of the united industrial, agrarian, etc. associations; by the workers themselves

must it be organised and managed, and then and only then will the great aspiration of

labor for social regeneration have a sound, firm foundation. Only su an organisation of

the commonwealth will make room for the really free, creative, new humanity, and will he

the actual threshold of nongovernmental, Anarist Communism.

us, and only thus, can be completely swept away all the remnants of our old, dying

civilisation, and the human mind and heart relieved of the varied poisons of ignorance and

prejudice.

e revolutionary world proletariat must be permied to hear this Anarist voice, whi

cries to them as of yore from the depths, from the prison dungeons.

e world proletariat should understand the great tragedy of the toilers of Russia: the

heart-breaking tragedy of the workers and peasants who bore the brunt of the Revolution

and who find themselves now helpless in the iron clut of an all-paralising State. e world

proletariat must, ere too late, loosen that stranglehold.

If not, then Soviet Russia, once the hearth of the Social Revolution of the world, will

again become the worlds haven of blaest reaction.

Moscow, June , 1921.

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T A LJune 8, 2010

Anti-Copyright.hp://theanaristlibrary.orgAuthor: Alexander Berkman

Title: Russian Revolution and the CommunistParty

Publication date: 1922

Retrieved on Mar 14th, 2009 fromhp://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/anarist_arives/bright/berkman/iish/rusrev/russianrevandcp.html

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Alexander Berkman Russian Revolution and the Communist Party a4

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